


The field of precious stones

by CupcakeGangsta



Series: Percival Graves' journey of fatherhood [4]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Original Work
Genre: Book: The Tales of Beedle the Bard, De-Aged Credence Barebone, Domestic Fluff, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fairy Tale Style, Gen, Giants, Parent Original Percival Graves, Wizarding Fairy Tales
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28617336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CupcakeGangsta/pseuds/CupcakeGangsta
Summary: Percival reads a bed-time story to Credence.A young wizard needs to clear a field of rocks in order to propose to the witch he wants to marry. When he encounters a giant he uses his wit to his advantage.
Relationships: Credence Barebone & Original Percival Graves
Series: Percival Graves' journey of fatherhood [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1463611
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	The field of precious stones

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write a Harry Potter styled Fairy Tale, like Beedle the Bard, for quite a while now. But I didn't know how to go about it. How original did I have to be? Would I have to incorporate it into my main fic? While at my parents for Christmas I picked up one of my most cherished fairy tale compilations, and after rereading and doing some googling I realized that most of the works in there is actually in public domain at this point.
> 
> So I figured I'd take a break from my studies and type out one of my favorites, adding my own spin to it.
> 
> For those expecting Percival reading this out word by word, sorry to disappoint; this is not that. Story first, and a kind of end note with Percival and Credence. Because they still had to be here, obviously.
> 
> See credit to original author at end note.

Once upon a time, there was a wizard boy named Inge. He was so poor a wizard - or even an ordinary human - could ever be, because the only thing he owned in the entire world was a field. The fact that he owned an entire field made no difference, however, because it was covered in rocks packed so tightly together that only a few faint straws of grass could grow between them. He had inherited the field from his dear late father, but nothing else, as his brothers who were all older than him, had taken everything else for themselves.

All hope was not lost on Inge, however, as he had managed to take up a job as a helper at a witch atelier, and his position there was neither comfortable nor dreadful. The witch owning the atelier had a daughter, named Maya, who was so fair and well mannered and also baked a marvelous cheese pie that Inge came to like her a fair bit. So one day he braced himself, stepped into the atelier, and asked the witch if he may ask her daughter to be his dear witchen wife.

The grown witch asked if he had gone completely mad. What were they supposed to eat and where would they live? After all, he had nothing and she would not permit her daughter to marry into poverty. She was a reasonable woman, however, and told him that when he was able to reap his own seed on his field as well as build a house he was not ashamed of he may return and ask again.

Inge looked at the ground at his feet, thumbed his robes then left. When twilight came, and he had finished his chores in the atelier he took his broom and went to his rock field. There he branded his wand - After all, he was a wizard! - and started removing the rocks, one-by-one and put them in a pile by the side. He would use these to build the foundation of his house he decided.

With each rock lifted a sigh passed his lips, he thought to himself that he would spend every night like this for the next ten years or so, for his work was so very slow. And by that time Maya may already have gotten married to someone else! Numerous times he was tempted to toss his wand in frustration and return to the small room he called his own at the atelier, but then he’d remember Maya and her delicious cheese pies, and so he raised his wand again and resumed his toiling.

After some time had passed, however, he noticed how something moved at the edge of his rock field and when he turned to look he saw a young giantess watching him from between the berry bushes. Her giant mouth looked like a crack in a mountain, her eyes were like plates full of milk with an island of gruel in the middle, and her long tangly hair draped around her ears like the bristles of a broom.

At first, Inge was slightly surprised, but then pretended like he did not see her and resumed his work, for he was well aware that a colony of giants lived in the nearby mountains, and he had already seen a few of them on nightly trips on his broom.

“Evening”, the giantess said once she understood that he had in fact noticed her. “Are you looking for treasures?”

“Why do you ask me that? Is there a treasure here?”, Inge asked in return, hoping for a moment that there was indeed a treasure underneath his field.

The giantess shook her giant head.

“Not that I’m aware”, she told him. “Just that no one would come here in the middle of the night otherwise.”

Inge was disappointed. But he did not despair fully, for he had learned that the giants were of lesser mind than the wizards, so he decided that he would test her. Perhaps it could prove entertaining.

“That’s what you think”, he said. “I’ve actually just found this field full of precious stones, and I intend to dig them up and sell them in town for a fortune.”

The giantess effortlessly picked up one of the rocks and peered at it. After turning it over a few times she frowned a little and looked at him once more.

“This is just a rock”, she told him.

“Sure”, the young wizard said and shrugged his shoulders. “You giants wouldn’t recognize such a prized rock. If you just take a look around at these _li_ _lactan amethysts_ you’d see that the entire field is lit in lilac. But again, you wouldn’t be able to see that, _being a giant._ Put down my rock now, would you? It’s a wonderful specimen that will make me a lot of money.”

The giantess carefully set down the rock on the ground again, her giant milk eyes suddenly filled with wonder as she studied it again.

“Aa”, she said suddenly. “Indeed, it is lilac!”

“Oh really?”, said the wizard, and continued directing the rocks to the pile.

The giantess watched him work for a moment.

“Could you give me just one, since you have so many?”, she asked.

The young wizard let his eyes go comically wide.

“You must be insane!”, he gasped, affronted. “I’d get four gold coins each for these small ones at the square in town! I cannot just give them away”, he said and showed her a stone as small as a pea.

The giantess frowned.

“If I help you pile them, will you give me a pair? A trade”, she suggested.

The wizard twiddled his wand, pretending to think it over.

“Yes, you may have one of them”, he said. “But you’ll have to put your back into it. You’ve already distracted me with your talk.”

And the giantess did. She bounced up, tall as a flag pole, ready to work. She bent down and filled her apron with rocks, then ran off to toss them at the pile Inge had started himself. And so they worked all night until morning came and the giantess had to return home before the non-magical started traversing the road near the field.

A fourth of the field had been cleaned, and the earth that had been cleaned showed dark, rich earth perfect for wheat and similar grains. Inge carefully picked out a rock for the giantess, and finally sent her off with one the size of a mandrake.

“There you go”, he declared. “It’s actually a bit too much, but you worked so hard.”

The giantess was so overjoyed that she proudly kissed the rock before skipping back home to her mountain. When she arrived home she took her giant needle and made a hole through the rock. Then she put her scarf through it and finally tied it around her neck like a pendant.

It was finely timed for her to wear something so pretty and prized because the Gurg of the colony had invited both her and her parents to a giant feast that very evening. She did not tell her parents about her new treasure however, for she wanted it to be a surprise for them and the entire party.

And a surprise it was. All the guests and all of the Gurg’s court gasped as she revealed the stone around her neck, and all at the same time they asked what she was wearing.

“Child of mine!”, her mother, an old giantess, whispered, aghast. _“Is that not a simple rock?”_

But her daughter merely laughed at her and told her, and everyone at the party, how she had traded the lilactan amethyst from a wizard and about the field that shone in lilac, but how it was hard for the giants to notice such a wonderful sight.

“Indeed, it _does_ seem lilac”, a giant lord of the court said as he peered at it.

And both of the Gurg’s daughters ran forward to see.

“Indeed it’s lilac!”, they cheered. “So shiny it almost hurts the eyes to look at it!”

And so the party continued. Everyone wanted to witness the lilactan amethyst and by the end of the evening, the young giantess had gotten engaged to a fine giant in possession of two mountains and five hills.

The next night Inge returned to his rock field and pointed and waved his wand, just like the night before. But he did not work all too hard, because he was secretly hoping that the giantess would return and assist him once more.

It did not take long before he noticed a pair of milked plated eyes peering at him through the bushes. But not just one pair! But two! It was the two Gurg’s daughters who could not stop thinking about the precious stones from the feast.

“Evening!”, they called as soon as he noticed them. “Would you like some help?”

Inge put on a dignant façade. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m doing quite fine by myself.”

“We can do it for practically nothing, sir wizard. We only want two each, for earrings.”

Inge twiddled his wand.

“Alright then”, he finally said. “Two each is a bit much though, so only this once”, he said.

Immediately both the giantesses sprung up and started filling up the fabric of their skirts and emptied them on the pile. Over and over they went so that once morning breached the field was three-fourths cleared, revealing soft black earth to sow in. Inge gave them two rocks each, as promised, and they ran home to drill holes in them and make earrings to make the other giants fiercely jealous.

When the third night arrived and Inge returned to his field of rocks once more he kept looking about him while lazily directing his wand at the rocks just in case another giant would appear and offer him help. No giantesses snuck around in his bushes, however, and he was left disappointed. The time reached for him to give up and start working properly himself when a tall figure appeared between the trees at the edge of the forest.

It was the Gurg himself, and he was so large and stoic and royal that Inge immediately bowed in respect for a good impression.

“Evening”, the Gurg said. Then without another word of greeting he stooped down and started picking up rocks onto the cape that he had brought, and emptied them out on the pile, just like the giants who had been there before him.

Once the field was completely cleared the Gurg pointed at the pile.

“I will buy these rocks and make a throne of them. Because I have only diamond and ordinary amethysts in my current one.”

“If that is what you wish, dearest Gurg”, the wizard nodded. “I’ll gladly trade them!”

Had it been any other type of being Inge would have tried to negotiate the prize, but when dealing with giants one had to be swift and not test their patience.

And so the Gurg stomped his foot twice in the ground, so hard that Inge almost fell over from the small earthquake it conjured. Shortly thereafter two giants came running out of the woods, and the Gurg ordered them to fetch sacks for the stones and ten barrels of gold in payment. They did this, returning with an entire party of other giants and in a blink of an eye the sacks had been filled with rocks and gravel and the barrels had been rolled out.

The giants then formed a long line and proceeded to parade back to the mountain, Gurg at the front, face glowing with pride like a full moon, for he knew for sure that he was about to have a throne like no other Gurg in the world.

And he wasn’t technically wrong.

Once they were gone Inge wasted no time in filling his pockets with gold before burying the barrels in the ground and covering them with protective spells. Then he raced back to the atelier on his broom. When his matron, the grown witch, woke up he asked both her and Maya to accompany him to his field.

Both witches were stunned with surprise when they saw the field, which laid black and ready to plow below them.

“And the house?”, the witch asked.

“It will stand on top of that hill”, Inge said and pointed. “And the windmill will be by that stream. And if Maya would like something else I’m sure we can have it built as well”, he continued and used his wand to brand the golden coins in his pockets, making them float around him as if he was the sun itself.

And once the house was built, as well as the rest of the buildings, and the first grains had been reaped the witch allowed the proposal. And Maya said yes, for in the time she and Inge had spent together in the atelier, she had grown quite fond of him, too.

And so they wedded each other, and lived happily ever after. Eating cheese pie every Friday, and pumpkin pie every Sunday, because cheese pie was not the only specialty of Maya.

And no, the giants never returned to ask about the lilactan amethysts.

The end.

* * *

“What did you think about that one?”, Percival asked as he closed the book.

The six-year-old was laying with his head propped up on the wizard’s upper arm where he had been gazing at the pictures of the book; equally as amazed by their moment as the first time he saw them. He pouted his little lip as he thought.

“I didn’t like Inge that much”, Credence told him.

“Because he tricked the giants?”

The child nodded.

“Yes, that was quite bad manners of him”, Percival agreed.

“I liked the first giant though”, Credence told him.

“The _giantess”,_ Graves gently corrected, ever mindful Credence learned the correct language of their world.

Credence nodded again. “I hope she was happy with that giant she married.”

“You could write a sequel”, Percival suggested, to which Credence timidly curled into the man’s side. But he did not complain or protest, so perhaps there was a chance.

Either way, he was glad the boy liked it. He was having quite a hard time finding books to read to the boy. Either they felt too insulting to his intellect - after all Credence had been eighteen once upon a time - or they were too long and set off more questions than Percival wanted to answer at bedtime. Then there was the thing of _teaching good morals,_ as the domestic column kept reminding him when discussing literature.

He wasn’t too sure what this particular story was trying to hint at, however.

“Promise you won’t get any ideas about tricking giants into physical labor, now”, he said as he let the book sail away to settle on the bookcase across the room. Then he turned his head and landed a loud kiss on the child’s head.

Looking down he saw that Credence was looking at him strangely.

“Daddy, giants aren’t real...”

**Author's Note:**

> Original Fairy tale:  
> "Juvelåkern" by Anna Wahlenberg. Ur länge, länge sedan, Albert Bonniers Förlag, 1903.  
> In public domain since 2003.
> 
> I freely translated the story from my printed copy and added wizarding elements.
> 
> If you want to read more works by Anna Wahlenberg there is a translated compilation called "Swedish Fairy tales" that she's included in. Not sure which works exactly though.
> 
> If you read this far: Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
